Demystifying the Science and Art of Political Polling - By Mark Blumenthal

So What *Is* A Push Poll?

August 22, 2006

Over the weekend, Greg Sargent of TPMCafe reported on what he considers "push polling, no question," involving some calls that trash two Democratic candidates for Congress, Kirsten Gillibrand in New York's 20th District and, more recently, Patty Weiss in Arizona's...[More...]

Lieberman Push Polls?

July 14, 2006

While public polls have been few and far between in the Connecticut Democratic primary, reports of "push polling" have been bubbling up through the blogosphere. Some of the most recent have been quite detailed and worthy of further discussion, if...[More...]

Gallup on NSA Phone Records

May 15, 2006

Another day and yet another poll on the NSA phone records controversy. This one, conducted on Friday and Saturday by USAToday and Gallup (n=809, margin of sampling error +/- 4%), takes a far more in-depth look at the issue that...[More...]

Legitimate Microtargeting

March 8, 2006

Today I want to clarify a point about the concept of "micro-targeting" raised in my posts two weeks ago about those mysterious Roboscam calls that appear to be an effort to improperly "harvest data" under the guise of a survey....[More...]

Roboscam Update

March 7, 2006

With all the distractions last week, MP neglected to post an update on the "Roboscam" calls he obsessed about two weeks ago. For now, interest in this story elsewhere has waned, and MP has received no new reports of the...[More...]

Gallup's Newport on Real Wiretapping Polls

February 24, 2006

Let's stay on the subject of the domestic eavesdropping issue, but go back to what real polls have to say about it. Today, Gallup's Frank Newport posted a highly relevant analysis looking at results from a number of different polling...[More...]

TPM Cafe-Cross Post: The Roboscam Calls

February 23, 2006

[Note: MP is cross-posting the following at the site TPM Cafe. It mostly reviews material that will be familiar to regular readers, but does include another update on the current list of members of Congress whose districts have been identified...[More...]

Roboscam: More from the Real USA Polling Group

February 23, 2006

Another quick Roboscam update. See the post earlier today for the context, but as a result of my calls to the staff of the real "USA Polling Group" at the University of South Alabama, I received an email this morning...[More...]

Roboscam: More From SurveyUSA

February 23, 2006

Another quick update. MP received an email this morning from Jay Leve, president of SurveyUSA regarding the "roboscam" phone calls we have been following. Leve wanted to make it clear that the research conducted by SurveyUSA is entirely legal under...[More...]

Roboscam Update

February 22, 2006

Tonight MP can report quite a bit of news on yesterday's "roboscam" post: The calls are probably illegal, readers have emailed with reports of calls received in five more congressional districts and an academic call center named "USA Polling" convincingly...[More...]

"Professional pollster Mark Blumenthal started Mystery Pollster to provide better interpretation of polling results and methodology... offers much needed help to Political Wire readers" - Political Wire